The Good, the Bad and the Food
by Az The Dragon
Summary: Netto does love to NetBattle, especially if said battle is a challenge. But what happens when you have to fight in a food store in the middle of the night? He and Forte are going to find that out at their own expenses.


**A/N:** This is a prize fic for yukito-chan (DeviantArt). She requested something with Netto, Forte and food. What came out is quite… well, read to find out. Hopefully you'll get a good laugh out of it. Just as I did while writing.

Rockman and related stuff (c) Capcom

Writing done by Az The Dragon

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The Good, the Bad and the Food

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Tiptoeing down the aisles of a large food store at three in the morning was not how Netto wanted to spend the night.

"It won't take long," the boy muttered to himself as he neared the end of a shelf and peered to make sure the next corridor was empty. He was using a tone of voice that mimicked Meijin's. "The network there has been infected with some viruses. We would send someone tomorrow, but the fridges are controlled by the infected computers."

Actually, he hadn't minded getting up at two AM to go out on a mission. He had gotten used to nightly calls, and if the mission took too long, he could just stay home and sleep all morning, while NetPolice or SciLabs called in to explain his absence.

What annoyed him was that things had quickly degenerated as soon as he took a step into the building. At first it was just a mild degree of creepiness when the doors locked behind his back, then the situation took a turn for the unexpected when a Dimensional Area appeared.

Prepared for the worst, but still clueless why someone would target a food store when there were more critical things to attack, he had Cross Fused with Rockman. After the initial plethora of light and sound, however, everything became eerily quiet.

He had explored the store left and right, checked every corner with buster at the ready, but he had not encountered a single virus. Something that left even Rockman speechless and confused.

Netto rubbed his left arm and cursed having let his guard down for a split second. He had managed to parry two attacks, but Forte's third swipe had been so quick that he hadn't even seen it hit the emblem on his chest. The damage hadn't been severe, but it had still cancelled the Cross Fusion, had entirely disabled his PET and had left him alone with a mad navi playing 'hide, seek and kill' with him.

The boy wasn't sure where Forte was at the moment, but he knew that just because he couldn't see or hear him, it didn't mean that the black navi had left. Careful not to hit one of the many jars and cans of food precariously perched on the shelves at his back, Netto rushed towards the next aisle as silently as he could. With some luck, perhaps, he could reach a phone and call for help.

The sound of a swishing cloth coming from his back, however, made Netto halt in his steps and turn around sharply to scan his surroundings. Forte was playing with him and the darkness of the night wasn't helping him at all in checking the darkest corners. Not even the psychedelic colors of the Dimensional Area where of any use.

Without the always helpful support of his navi because of a non-functional PET, Netto felt powerless and took a step backwards, away from the darkness and towards the closed entrance door of the store. And he would have continued to do so if he didn't bump into something that wasn't supposed to be there.

Netto remained frozen where he was for a couple of seconds, unable to command his legs into running as fast as they could and as far away as possible, before he turned his head upwards and looked into the red eyes of his chaser.

"Give me Rockman's power."

The navi's voice was perfectly calm, but his tone was so icy that it made Netto's heart take a leap. As much as uncomfortable as it was for the boy, he was glad that his legs finally found the courage to try moving. It was a clumsy movement, though, and before Netto could get to safety, a white gloved hand closed around his throat.

With the air cut off from his lungs, Netto was pushed backwards until he was roughly pinned to the nearby wall and robbed of the blue PET he was clutching in his left hand. A second later, the pressure on his windpipe increased and the boy, not ready to just die and let his best friend in the hands of a power hungry navi, started to fight back as much as he could.

The strength of a human, however, was nothing compared to that of a navi, especially if that navi was Forte, but Netto was known to never give up despite the odds. While his feet tried to push the black navi away, his hands moved about in search of anything that could help him, and promptly grabbed the first thing that he found, launching it directly at Forte's face.

Busy as he was in observing his captured prize, Forte never saw the object until it was too late. Soft cracks sounded into the silent air and the surprise was so great that the navi released his hold onto the boy and stepped backwards, clutching at his face with his free hand.

Not wasting any precious seconds to marvel at how effective fresh eggs were on Forte, Netto snatched Rockman's PET from the still surprised navi and ran as fast as he could, ignoring the sputtering protests coming from behind his back.

That was when the chase started.

With a furious black navi hot on his heels that was blasting as many things as he could in hope of hitting him, Netto took turn after turn. All the while wondering how big the place was. Forte had already destroyed six sections and the boy couldn't even see the far wall. It felt like he was in a nightmare, only that he knew that it wasn't one, or his throat wouldn't hurt so much.

Netto came to a screeching halt in the middle of a corridor as Forte suddenly appeared, cutting off his escape. He dove to the side just in time to avoid a sizzling ball of energy that passed so close to his head it singed the ends of his hair. Without having successfully connected with its intended target, the attack continued its path and found a stop against a large shelf.

The explosion was deafening and debris flew everywhere.

Along with pretzels, candies and several shredded packs of flour that spilled their contents into the air, creating a white curtain that engulfed both human and navi.

Then three things happened.

Netto sneezed, Forte put his foot on a fallen bottle on the ground, which was hidden from view thanks to the flour, unceremoniously flying to the ground on his back, and the still standing shelf housing a few hundred bottles of oil crashed onto them.

The sound of breaking glass was loud and although neither Netto nor Forte got cut in the process, the liquid was spilled everywhere on the ground, on the shredded merchandise on the ground, and onto the two.

When all the dust and flour finally settled, nothing moved for long seconds until Netto poked his head out of a hole in the wreckage and warily looked around. "When I get out of here, and _I will_ get out of here," he muttered as he spotted Forte's legs sticking out from under a shelf. Like him, they were covered in flour, oil, pretzels and candies. "I will have a small talk with Meijin-san…"

As Netto crawled out of the hole he had ended up in and stood up to somewhat clean himself from the excessive food, Forte twitched. The boy paused in the motion of taking a candy off from his hair and stared as the navi easily pushed the shelf away from him.

Deciding that staying around to see the reaction of someone like Forte was not a good idea, Netto carefully tiptoed away, hoping that Forte was too busy cursing and muttering death sentences to notice that he was leaving.

His unnoticed escape lasted for a couple of minutes before his ears were painfully pierced by a roar of outrage accompanied by the explosion of yet another shelf at his left. This time it was the milk cartons that took flight and spilled their white liquid into wide arches. Netto might have started in awe at the strange beauty of it if it wasn't for a formerly black navi stomping his way towards him.

Formerly black because Netto noticed that Forte was still covered in flour, oil, pretzels and colorful candies.

Not wanting to be in the path of a raging navi, the boy backtracked several steps before turning around and dashing to the left, grabbing a few egg containers as he passed by the large stack that he had previously encountered when Forte was strangling him. They weren't exactly the weapon he would like to have at the moment, but it was better than being empty handed…

Trading stealth for speed because of all the white prints he was leaving, Netto did everything in his power to stay away from Forte and not get hit by those energy balls that he loved to use so much.

The next explosion blew up the ground in front of him, throwing Netto several feet backwards and making him land on his back, dazed. The eggs he was carrying, however, had a much worse fate.

After the sudden change of direction caused by the explosion's shockwave, the containers opened and their roundish contents were now freely rolling into the air in a low arch. In dozens they flew past Netto's sight and, because of his dazed mind, for a moment he thought that he was watching one of those slow-motion videos with an epic song in the background. The boy was somewhat fascinated at how they crashed to the ground, one after another, just as Forte exploded out of a dust cloud in the background holding a couple of dark swords in his hands.

Then, as he blinked, time resumed its normal course. Forte stepped on the smashed eggs without even realizing it and slipped onto the slimy aliment, falling to the ground on his back a second time, and coming to a sliding halt right next to Netto.

"This must be a joke…" he grunted as he stared at the dangling light on the ceiling.

And as the navi logged out of the dimensional area, tired of the whole ordeal, Netto exploded into sleep-deprived laughter.


End file.
